By their very nature, museums, heritage sites and other tourist favourites tend to be backwards-looking, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t global attractions that flip the script to imagine what lies ahead – or what could exist in alternate universes.

From interactive museums to cities built on tomorrow’s green tech and imagination-firing immersive-art zones, the following destinations offer a passport to innovative worlds, be they future or imaginary ones.

Shenzhen Science & Technology Museum

Inspired by a “colossal interstellar spacecraft” and located in the Guangming Science City, the Shenzhen Science & Technology Museum is an eight-storey (two subterranean) architectural masterpiece designed by Zaha Hadid Architects that opened last May. It features an eye-catching U-shaped stainless-steel facade and this year was named one of the world’s seven most beautiful museums by the compilers of the Prix Versailles lists.

This immersive, tech-driven playground is packed with hands-on artificially intelligent robotics, simulation technologies and state-of-the-art cinemas. Outdoor terraces and a sunlit central atrium integrate the building with the surrounding Science Park and the museum is easy to reach across a walkway from the Guangming Metro Station, a mere 90 minutes from Hong Kong’s Central MTR station (depending on connections and border-crossing queues).

Chengdu Science Fiction Museum

Another Zaha Hadid Architects masterpiece, the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum “floats” on Jingrong Lake and boasts a “fluid starburst” roof that reflects the expanding nebula of the universe to viewers on the outside.